Jake Wallis Simons (@JakeWSimons) is a Telegraph features writer, novelist and broadcaster. His website is jakewallissimons.com. Follow him on Facebook here and on Twitter here. His fourth novel, Jam, which is set in a traffic jam on the M25, is out now.

Ukip are poised to out-poll the Tories. Is this the tipping point?

Now that the same-sex marriage bill has been passed, the Cameroons will be breathing a sigh of relief. They will be hoping to put the whole issue behind them, at least for a while. What they fail to recognise, however, is that yesterday's farcical events have continued to hand political capital to Ukip.

From the Prime Minister's point of view, crusading on equal marriage is a way of furthering the modernisation of the Tory party and increasing its appeal to a younger generation of voters. But the youngest generation tend to view the issue with bemusement. They instinctively believe that gay marriage should be legalised, can't understand why the politicians are making such a fuss about it, and don't bother to vote anyway (even if they did, it wouldn't be for the Conservatives).

For the middle generation, however, two points will be abundantly clear. Firstly, the Tory party is horribly divided: a recent poll suggests that 70 per cent of the public share this perception. Secondly, that the whole episode is just another example of here-we-go-round-the-mulberry-bush hijinx in the Westminster village, which Lord Ashcroft pithily called a "spiral of irrelevance".

When viewed from the outside, last night was a farce. The Cameron camp joined with Labour and the Lib Dems to head off a cynical amendment from the Tory backbenches, on condition that the same amendment – which Labour and the Lib Dems fundamentally support – is rehashed and tabled ASAP. What? This was light years away from "conviction politics", and the irony was that nobody in Westminster even noticed.

To a voter who is politically engaged; who is alienated by the gay marriage debate anyway; and who has sympathies with Mr Farage's concern that the three main parties are all but identical, populated by "college kids" intent on political manoeuvring rather than conviction, it was just another reason to stick two fingers up at the lot of them. And vote Ukip.

A key watershed is on the horizon. According to current figures, the Tories are polling 24 per cent, and Ukip is on 22 per cent. The tipping point in which Ukip overtakes the Tories is not very far away, and seems to be approaching fast. Imagine the headlines: UKIP MORE POPULAR THAN TORIES. The media is a fickle beast; but if the splash happens, it will be like a slot machine turning up five cherries and the coins will come cascading into Mr Farage's lap.

The saving grace for the Tories has been that Ukip, which is devoid of a parliamentary presence, is still seen as a party of protest in mid-term. Come 2015, they hope, the public will understand that a vote for Farage is a vote for Miliband.

If Ukip is perceived as commanding more popular support than the Tories, however, Mr Farage's party will carry more weight, and that may translate into actual votes at the ballot box. The Tories' heads are on the block, and they don't seem to know what to do about it.